COS, a small island in the Archipelago, near the coast of Caria in Asia Minor, celebrated for the spirit of its inhabitants in resisting the Persian monarchs, and as the birth-place of Hippocrates, of Apelles, and of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Its chief city, of the same name, stood opposite to Halicarnassus, but was destroyed by an earthquake during the Peloponnesian war. The island is fruitful and salubrious, and celebrated for its wine, silks, and cotton of a beautiful texture. Its modern name is Stanco or Stanchio. Pop. about 8000.
COSCINOMANCY (κόσκινον a sieve, and μαντεία divination), the art or practice of divination by suspending a sieve and taking it between two fingers, or by fixing it to a pair of shears, then repeating a formula of words and naming the persons suspected of some offence. If the sieve trembled, shook, or turned when any name was repeated, that person was deemed guilty of the evil in question.
This species of divination is mentioned in the third idyll of Theocritus, and was in use within a recent period in some parts of England.